


a setting sun will rise again

by Myrime



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Tony Is Going To Give It To Him, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Infinity War spoilers, Peter deserves better, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Pepper Potts, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 18:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14624181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS!When Tony comes home after the war with Thanos, he can barely deal with their failure. Earth’s best and mightiest against one foe, and still they have lost – lost more than he can accept.With Peter’s death weighing heavily on his mind, Tony sets himself the task to do the impossible. To have a future worth living, they first have to undo the past.





	a setting sun will rise again

**Author's Note:**

> So, Infinity War - I haven't yet sorted all my feelings for it. But it was awesome and I'm going to watch it again this week.  
> This little piece is the result of me very much not sleeping after the movie.  
> Enjoy!

When Tony comes home, battered and broken – more than he has ever thought possible, even counting all the scars he has already gathered – he falls right into Pepper’s arms. He does not care for reports or rendezvous points but takes what is left of his suit right to his and Pepper’s apartment. His mind, for the moment, is not his own. All he feels is loss and the vast, uncomprehending lack of sense. The only thing that keeps him going at all is the thought of Pepper. He knows he cannot bear a world without her in it.

As far as mercy goes he is not owed any but he receives this one nonetheless, the enormous mercy of not losing the love of his life on top of everything else.

FRIDAY alerts Pepper of his coming, so she stands outside on the roof when he arrives, tall and strong but already so very fragile. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her hands clasped in front of her mouth, holding back words or screams. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes upon.

The suit does not fold back when he lands, so he activates the emergency release and stumbles out of it more than he walks, right into Pepper’s arms. He is sure she needs to touch him as much as he does, to make sure they are real and together, impossible as it sounds.

But there she is, warm and breathing and holding onto him with everything she has. They are alive.

He does not have any words, no strength to speak, not even to her. He is so unbelievably glad that she is alive that the whole miserable rest falls away for a short moment. Thanos and Bruce, Steve and – Peter. Peter. _Peter_. Misery, it seems, has the habit of catching up with him.

There are a hundred things he should tell her. _I’m sorry_ , for leaving her again when he had promised he would not. _I’m here_ , although he is still caught in space, on a graveyard without any sign of its dead. _I love you_. That one is completely true, but it makes him so terribly afraid.

All he can think, no matter that the words circle his throat and steal his air, is that he has failed. They have all failed, earth’s best and mightiest, all of them against one foe, who simply flicked his wrist to bring them down. But he has failed more than all of them, because he has seen what was coming, has seen the destruction and desolation Thanos would bring. Steve’s words ring truer in his ears than ever. _You could have saved us_. But he has not.

“Tony.” Pepper’s voice registers dimly over the wildness of his heartbeat, hoarse like she has been calling him for hours. Or screaming through the horrors before. “Tony.”

He only clings harder to her, allowing himself to stupidly hope he will never have to let go again. Like that, surely, he cannot lose her. Only he always manages to lose.

“You’re home,” she continues, somehow managing to stay calm, even while the world around them has descended into chaos.

 _Home_ , he muses. Home was a place that made sense. This, whatever it is, does not.

“I’m fine,” Peppers says, repeating it like a mantra as if she hopes that would calm him. It does not because it is a lie. Neither of them is fine, and will not be for a while.

“Happy?” he asks, the first words he can press out of his constricted throat, and then, when Pepper hesitates, again, “Where is Happy?”

Her silence is answer enough but she has always been a stronger person than him, so she looks him in the eye and says, “Gone. He was there right next to me and then.” And then he was not. Like everyone else who was erased by Thanos’ mad wish. Like Peter who has never been like _everyone else_ to Tony.

Rhodey is alive, he knows that much, hearing message after frantic message from everyone in his family during his descent back to earth. They had cursed and begged and wished for his safe return. And here they are, at least three of them making it out.

“Let’s take you home,” Pepper says gently, tugging him into the direction of the door leading off the roof.

He should probably be checked over in a hospital so someone can take proper care of his stab wound, but Tony is infinitely glad that Pepper does not insist on hoisting him off immediately on some eager doctors but just keeps holding onto him, a promise almost. No matter how painfully obvious it has just become that nothing in their world is certain. A promise means nothing if fate does not let them keep it.

 

* * *

 

 May knows. Maybe she does even before she opens the door for him, but Tony’s face does not leave any room for a different outcome. He has cried and he does not hide it; he wears his hidden armour like he still trusts it. He does not even trust himself anymore.

It has taken him a long day to come here, filled with fending off doctors and staying far away from hospitals and reassuring himself that Pepper is still there. She offered to go for him, tried to talk him into making a video call, but telling a woman that her all-but-son is dead cannot be done any way other than eye to eye.

So here he is, staring wordlessly at May Parker, feeling Peter’s absence all the harder with every breath he forces into his lungs.

They stand in silence for a long minute, long enough that Tony thinks she will send him away again, although he has always pegged her as ready to murder if need be. He almost wishes she would lash out.

Instead, she says, “Come in,” with the kind of utter calm that he knows to be so very fragile.

Tony follows May into her home, fighting the urge to close his eyes against it. Everywhere are traces of Peter, traces that will vanish piece by piece, day by day until there is nothing left but their memories, superseded by this very last one.

She leads him into the living room and they sit down much like they did when they first met, only now there is no awe and charm, no possibilities for beginnings of something bigger. Their knees do not touch but they are close nonetheless, although the silence between them is thick enough to be just shy of suffocating.

“I’m sorry,” are the first words he says, wincing at how insufficient they are. He sounds as brittle as he feels.

“How?” May asks, sounding like she does not want to hear the answer as much as she needs it.

“You have to believe that I tried to send him home,” Tony all but begs. He does not seek absolution, does not deserve it, because _trying_ is never good enough. Peter should not have been there at all, Tony should have kept him out of the fight. But he did not. He would have died wherever he was, but at least he could have been home, with people who deserved his love more than Tony.

“But he wouldn’t go,” May says absentmindedly. Even though she has found out about his chosen side-job of being a hero only recently, she has known her nephew for much longer, and his habit of never backing down. “Not while you were still in danger.”

There it is again, Tony’s fault. If only he had not sought more manpower during the whole Accords debacle. If only he had not taken Peter under his wing afterwards. If only he had not grown so fond of him. They were happy for a while, playing their game of mentor-student sliding into something more familial, without ever thinking of the consequences. Still, he would not change their time together for anything. Well, anything but the chance to get Peter back.

“He was so very brave,” Tony whispers, ducking away from May’s pained smile. “I never wanted this.”

“I know,” May says, not a trace of doubt in her voice. But she keeps looking at him expectantly, not yet ready to let her guard down because she still does not have her answer.

Tony wonders, briefly, what would hurt most, losing Peter to the fight because Tony could not protect him or as it is now, having him die despite their efforts, wiped out just because of a madman’s wish, taken from them without logic or reason. He doubts there is a difference at all. In any case, it cannot hurt worse than this.

“We fought Thanos and we lost.” It sounds so simple, just a sequence of words. Change them up, try again. Only life does not work that way. “We almost did it but –”

Tony does not want to make up excuses or shift the blame. So, yes, Quill overreacted, breaking Thanos from Mantis’ hold, and ruined their chance to get the gauntlet off. Yes, Strange gave up the stone and thereby made Thanos all the harder to beat. Yes, Tony got stabbed and had all but accepted death as a certainty. But he had done so the moment he flew after the ship. The simple truth is, he was not good enough, bleeding out or not. His suit was not good enough even with all the upgrades he has installed since Siberia. _He_ has failed.

“Thanos got away. Easily even.”

Not for the first time since coming home Tony wishes Thanos would have killed him after all. Damn Strange and his fickle decision to intervene and give their enemy right what he wanted. Tony’s life does not matter in the great scope of things and maybe his death would have tipped the balance in Peter’s favour. His life for Peter’s; he would not have hesitated a moment.

“Peter was alive,” Tony says tonelessly, shaking his head because he still cannot understand how fast everything has happened. “And then they all - he just –”

“Vanished.” May nods like this has suddenly become an acceptable manner of death. “Into thin air, like he never existed in the first place. Like he didn’t matter.” Her voice breaks but her eyes stay dry. Tony cannot say the same of himself.

 _I don’t want to go. Please_. Peter’s voice echoes in Tony’s ears, tearing at his chest with unchanged intensity, the boy’s phantom weight still heavy on his shoulders. He knows he will never be free of it.

 _I’m sorry_ , Tony had said instead of saving him, of doing anything to change Peter’s fate, even though, logically speaking – assuming there is any logic in this at all – there is nothing he could have done. He just watched on, beaten and bloody and feeling their defeat in every fibre of his being.

“He is like a son to me,” Tony says, acutely aware of how he never told that to Peter when he still had the chance, too afraid of his own emotions and of binding someone this pure to him when the only thing he ever does is destroy.

May watches him closely, her shoulders tense, which is the only sign of how very close she is to her breaking point. But she does not break, although she has all the more reason for it than Tony.

“Was,” she corrects him tonelessly, holding his gaze until he has to look away. His strength does not match hers in any way and he does not want to fight any more battles.

Still, he says, “No,” repeating the word over and over again to stem against the tide of his mind breaking in, flooding his system with the kind of grief that he will not come back from.

“They are all gone.”

Tony is not sure whether May speaks of half the universe or only her small part of it, Peter and Ben, her brother-and-sister-in-law, the family she has had to let go, one after the other.

“But this is not the end,” Tony insists, more because this is what he would have said before – in any other case than this – than because he has any conviction backing up the words.

May regards him with pity, although that does not hurt as much as it should. It is not pity he is afraid of but the truth. Accepting that it is over.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, aware that he will not listen. “You said he did not die in battle so you did your part. You cannot change who was chosen by that gauntlet.”

May should not be consoling him. It is not all right in any world, in any way to look at this and not recognize Tony as guilty. Not even if he grudgingly admits that there is truth in her reasoning.

“You haven’t seen him.” He is being thoroughly unfair but he does not mean to be, he just cannot get the scene out of his head: Peter stumbling, pleading, fading. All in front of the background of his worst nightmare. How could Wanda have been so right and so wrong at the same time?

“I’m glad you were there with him,” May says and means it, even though she should know better.

Wordlessly, Tony shakes his head. When has his presence ever made anything better? When has he ever done something that did not end in destruction? Before Tony knows it, he is sobbing, loud and ready to claw his heart out, which still does not stop beating, not even through all the pain he has loaded onto it throughout the years.

In response, May opens her arms and pulls him close. This is the second time now in as many days that he is held together by people stronger than him. It is not fair. If anything, May should curse him, throw him out of her house and life, call him out as the murderer he is. She entrusted him with Peter and he failed. Her nephew is dead because Tony could not do even one thing right: keep safe the boy he regarded as his own.

Still, Tony does not draw back, does not have the strength to do so. He lets May’s warmth surround him, rests his head against her chest to listen to her heartbeat, fast but steady. He owes so many lives now, he has all but lost count of them. Right now, however, only one matters.

If only he were not this helpless.

 

* * *

 

They do not even have bodies to bury, no trace left of the people they loved. Love. Present tense, because love does not stop with death. It just gets all the more painful.

 Tony does not sleep. His nights have been filled with nightmares before, and he has no desire to add to that fire, especially since the memory never leaves even when he is awake. So he goes to bed with Pepper, listens to her heartbeat until even his scarred mind is convinced she is still alive and well, and extricates himself from her arms once she is asleep. She does not rest soundly either, always worrying too much about him, but no one can outrun exhaustion forever.

Silently, feeling like a ghost, he makes his way to his workshop, hesitating in front of the door before turning away. He has not stepped foot in it since – Thanos. (He cannot even find another word for it without caving to the pain.) All his supposed genius, all his new gadgets, his improved suit, none of it was enough. What worth has he now?

Leaving the lights off, he keeps to wandering. Pepper has made sure their home is beautiful but he cannot bear to see it, not with all this destruction filling his mind. And all he does is making it worse.

BARF was supposed to be an escape, a way to cope with things. Instead, he uses it to revisit every moment of this admittedly very short war; from Dr. Strange interrupting his planning for a brighter future with Pepper to him stranding at the shores of the nightmare Wanda showed him all those years ago. Although the fear of losing his team felt nothing like actually losing Peter.

 _How many did we win?_ He hears himself ask Dr. Strange, his voice strained but not yet full of the knowledge of what is to come.

_One._

It does not make sense, Strange asking Thanos for Tony’s life only hours after warning Tony that he would not care for their deaths as long as the Time Stone is secure.

 _I’m sorry._ Strange’s parting words, spoken not very apologetically. But the end of one’s existence does not really leave much room for apologies. _There was no other way._

That is what Tony needs. A way. Any way to make this right. Strange would not sell them out, would not forsake his oath for nothing. He saved Tony’s life, which means that Tony must be worth something still, must be relevant somehow to get their one happy ending.

Unless, of course, having only half of the universe wiped out instead of all of it _is_ their happy end already. But he cannot allow himself to think like that. Not now. Not when everything is lost but this small spark.

The next night, Tony does not hesitate to enter his workshop. He has no idea what to do, where to begin, but he knows that he cannot do the impossible if he does not start somewhere.

He calls Bruce. He calls Dr. Cho and Shuri. He reassigns the entire R&D department of Stark Industries. He assembles quite a different team of heroes than what Fury has imagined, but since the old bastard has ceased existing too, he might not protest too much if they succeed. If. _When_. Tony has never had much room for optimism in his life, but believing in the future has become all but impossible without it. And, as established, he does not do well with that.

Barely a week later and they have not healed by far but Tony feels lighter nonetheless, not anymore like all is lost. Knowledge has always been beautiful to him, but he thought it to be a private thing. Now, with the compound turned into a haven of knowledge, he realizes how wrong he has been. Here, a thought is shared to be transformed and multiplied and shaped into a tangible thing. Here, ideas take form to build a new future.

No speeches are needed, no policies, no limits. Everyone has lost someone, everyone knows what is at stake because it has already happened. They are trying to undo this not-quite silent apocalypse and they have enemies wherever they turn: time, logic, reality. None of that is enough to make them give up, even though the very thought is insane. Then again, so was the idea of Thanos coming to earth and waving his gauntlet to wipe out lives like they have never existed. The end has been set before them, not leaving them much of a chance at all. But now they have only just begun.

Pepper, strangely, is at Tony’s side throughout all of it. She has never been one to cope well with _him_ not coping. He is also not sure whether she believes in him, in his mad vision, or just in him doing something to claw himself up out of the hole grief has pushed him into. Anything would be better than him turning into a ghost.

As usual, her very own genius for organization and keeping people in check makes things so much easier. She organizes transportation, housing and sponsoring. She manages the authorities and solves any problem before it can actually realize itself. All that so that Tony can concentrate on the science part of their endeavour.

In return, he comes home to her each night. He does not always stay until morning, but he allows her to hold him, to talk through every loss and victory of every day. And Tony knows that this, finally, is the love he has been searching for all his life. He has loved Pepper before, of course, but he has no strength left for masks, allowing her to love all of him in return.

He wonders whether that is worth the price they have paid, although the answer is clear: only if they manage to reverse it.

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Rogers is asking for you,” FRIDAY announces while Tony is talking through some data with Shuri – who is technically supposed to step up as queen now, especially with her country in dire need of guidance through their rebuilding, but she firmly believes that her brother can be saved and she will not wear a crown that is his.

Tony freezes briefly, but Siberia has not been on his mind for weeks now, not in any way that matters, and Steve is no threat to him here. By that he does not mean the improved suit or the compound’s defence mechanisms. But they are surrounded by a hundred people and more who need him and his brain and his unwillingness to give up. They will not lose him to Captain America, not for old grievances.

“Where is he?” Tony asks, saving their work with a flick of his wrist.

“Outside the main entrance,” FRIDAY reports dutifully while Tony raises his eyebrows in surprise. Waiting outside like an unbidden guest unsure of how he will be received – that does not sound like Captain America, who turned out to be more the type for barging in unannounced to shoot first and ask questions later.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to see to this,” Tony says to Shuri, actual regret in is voice that is not only due to the importance of their work. “I’ll come back later if you don’t mind.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Shuri asks, head bent over a sheet of paper. Her avoiding direct eye contact is deliberate, giving him enough room to back out. She sounds nonchalant, but Tony knows how perceptive she is, how aware she is of his personal history with Steve. If she were to accompany him, she could serve as a shield between Steve and him, knowing both of them but having no role in their quarrel.

Tony allows himself to be touched for a short moment before he shakes his head. “Keep working,” he says like any of them need a reminder for that, “we all have a common enemy now.”

“He might think this war is over,” she points out calmly, looking up at him with eyes older than her years.

He wonders how it would have been, growing up with a family praising his intellect, sheltered and allowed to do as he wished. Tony thinks she is a stronger person than him for all that. In any case, she has less scars, although losing her family weighs just as heavy, heavier surely than losing his.

“The tactician in him might,” Tony agrees grimly but shrugs at the thought, “but men will always grasp for hope.”

“Like we do.”

They share a smile, not happy but not bitter either. Science is their lifeblood. They will always believe in that even if everything else fails.

“Like we do,” Tony agrees. He briefly touches her arm as he leaves, quite unable to tell when this habit started to form, although he needs it nonetheless, if only to make sure that no one else around him is dissolving into nothing. Like Peter has, right in his arms.

“Tell Steve I’m on my way,” Tony says to FRIDAY, strangely reluctant to ask Steve in without him present. What they are doing is no secret and depending on where Steve has hidden himself away to process what has happened, he will know already, but he feels that Steve waiting outside without barging in as he might have done before is as much a statement as Tony going to welcome him in. He only hopes that speaks of better tidings for their future than they had in the past.

As soon as Tony catches sight of his one-time friend, he realizes that, for the first time, Steve looks how a man with his history of loss should look like: weary and tired and like his world has shattered in front of him. As it has. Again.

The beard is new too. But no matter how scruffy it is, it cannot hide that Steve has bitten his lips bloody – recently enough that the serum has not had a chance to heal them. His eyes, too, are like open wounds, pulling Tony deeper and deeper into a place he has barely managed to leave himself. He wonders how Pepper has not given up on him if he came home looking just like this.

“Steve,” Tony greets evenly, keeping his expression open. They have fought enough for several lifetimes. “It has taken you a long time to come home.” He does not know where _home_ is for Steve anymore, but the compound has been waiting for two years even if Tony has not. Not actively.

“I couldn’t –” Steve stumbles over the words, his voice cracking like he has not used it in a while. “I didn’t know what to do.”

As if any of them did. How does one go on with a strange would-be-god’s mercy thrust upon them all? How could they count their losses and simply keep on living?

But Steve looks at him with something in his gaze that looks like hopelessness and that is a look not befitting Captain America. Or, if he is honest with himself, not Steve Rogers either, who has come into a new century, stranger to his own kin, and simply shouldered on, stumbling where he could not walk but never standing still.

“And you know it now?” Tony asks quietly. _He_ does, but then he has never been one to sit idly. A mind that cannot stop thinking can easily turn into one’s worst enemy if not given a task, and Tony’s has nudged him towards one too many abysses already.

They are standing several feet apart but Tony does not need to touch Steve to know he is real. The Captain has always had the sort of presence that could not be ignored. Still, Tony walks closer to him, offering his hand and with it both forgiveness and the promise of help. Steve’s skin on his does not trigger memories, but looking into his face from this close does.

They were a team once, civil war be damned, and he can barely stand seeing Steve like this, caught in a maelstrom of reliving everything bad that has happened, because he remembers the feeling in his very bones.

“Are you all right?” Tony asks, meaning it only in a physical sense. Mentally, they are all trying not to crumble.

Steve ignores the question, occupied by studying Tony in turn. He too must find that, for once, they are the same. Although they might just have always been. Steve has always cared too openly, barely trying to mask it with his sense for duty, while Tony hid his caring too deep, beneath layers of sarcasm and self-endorsement. In the end, they would both go to any lengths to keep their loved ones safe, even if it means turning on a friend or remaking the past.

“Who did we lose?” Steve asks in return, words so quiet that it becomes obvious how little he truly wants to know.

Although he _should_ know by now, having been team leader before. And Rhodey was with them in Wakanda, even though he has come home to Tony right after. Surely they have stayed in contact. Surely Steve has been informed about the scope of their decimation.

“Too many,” Tony says, not bothering to keep the grief out of his voice. And it does not matter; they are all grieving.

“Who did _you_ lose?” Steve rephrases his question, taking more care with it but being unable to hold the pain from it.

That, apparently, is another one of Thanos’ mercies, allowing them to reflect just how much they cared for the people he erased. The answer, in every case, is _too little too late_.

“Peter,” Tony then says, tonelessly. It feels like a confession, a guilt he will never be ready to be absolved from.

And Steve looks unwaveringly at him. “Bucky,” he says right back.

For once, there are no barriers between them, nothing to argue about. This war flayed them open to their very core and not even their old hurts are enough to raise them from this abhorrent grief.

But this is not a comparison of scars, not a challenge to win. So Tony says, “I’m sorry,” and turns away, expecting Steve to follow – who does not but keeps standing back, looking lost and maybe even afraid of being rejected.

“Wait,” Steve calls. It is almost amusing to Tony to hear that word out of Steve’s mouth. When have they ever waited before jumping headfirst into their destiny? “What are you doing now?”

“Working,” Tony shrugs, deliberately nonchalant. He cannot allow himself to sound too hopeful because what they are doing is overwhelming enough without adding expectation borne from emotions to it. “I was in a meeting with Shuri just now.”

“Working on what?” Steve sounds so despondent that it gives Tony halt. Neither of them have been made for giving up, but Steve’s famed stubbornness seems to have waned.

“Working on a – cure, for lack of a better word.”

They have refrained from giving their research a name to avoid setting themselves limits. _Reversal_ means tracing back, but it is likely that they cannot. Instead they are looking into everything, the more abstract the better because conventional means will barely help them in as unconventional a situation as theirs.

“A _cure_?” Steve looks taken aback, going so far as to retreat a bit, bringing more distance between the two of them.

Smiling somewhat sadly, because he has not truly expected anything different, Tony says, “There is nothing that cannot be unmade.”

It would be easier to simply take Steve into the compound, show him what they have set up. That could be enough to convince him that this is not Tony’s idea alone, not only his mind spiralling into madness. But their work should be viewed with the appropriate awe, not as the means to end a futile argument. It is highly probable that they will get nowhere, that they will find answers to a thousand other problems but never theirs. They are, however, trying, all of them working hand in hand. That is a thing of beauty in itself. Not enough to soothe their wounds and losses but giving them hope nonetheless.

“They are dead,” Steve says, voice trembling with the enormity of his belief. “All of them.”

“Because Thanos snapped his fingers.” It takes some effort but Tony manages to make his tone flippant. Since coming back it has been nigh on impossible to don his old mask of carelessness. “This was in no way the natural course of things. So we will dissect how it has happened and make it right.” He has always been good at making hard things sound simple.

“Tony,” Steve all but pleads, beseeching him to listen, “I know what you’re feeling; I’m feeling it right now. But –”

“It doesn’t matter what you think.” Tony does not mean this as an insult. It is a fact, and one that does not even necessarily have much to do with Steve himself. “We don’t need your approval. All we need is an opportunity. Go back to fighting small-time criminals for all I care. But we will find a way to save them.”

Steve opens his mouth, closes it without saying a word. But the way he looks at Tony tells him everything. Beneath all the desolation and anger there is the smallest spark of hope. Because Tony is known for doing the impossible, and even while Steve cannot believe, hope is something much less substantial but much more powerful.

“Tell me if there is anything I can do,” he finally says, not convinced but also not judging.

Tony takes his time to answer. They have not parted on good terms, have not mended their old scars, but surely none of this matters in the greater scope of things. But there is a reason he has carried the burner phone with him at all times, even when he had arguably made his mind up to never use it.

“I will,” he says and turns away, his back to Steve as if he has never stopped trusting him, as if the very thought of Captain America has not turned him into a shivering mess during countless of panic attacks after Siberia.

“I mean it. If you can do this then –”

“I mean it too, Steve” Tony cuts him off gently, although there is a hint of bitterness accompanying his next words. “I know there is nothing you wouldn’t do for Barnes.”

There had been no relief upon hearing that Barnes is one of Thanos’ victims. Tony has made his peace with his parents’ death. It is Steve who has wronged him after all.

“This is not about –” Steve argues, causing Tony to chuckle, although it is not a happy sound.

“Of course it is. It is about all of them. About half the universe we promised and failed to protect.” He closes his eyes briefly, allowing himself to briefly touch the centre of hurt balling in the middle of his chest. “But more acutely it is about Peter and Happy, Barnes and Wanda and Sam and T’Challa. This is about all of _us_.”

“Tony,” Steve says in a way that has Tony knowing exactly what is coming. “I’m sorry.”

The truth is, Tony does not care. Not anymore. Two years separate them from Siberia. Two years and a dozen suit upgrades and his wedding. Two years of him becoming something like a father to the boy he has lost.

“I know,” Tony answers softly because he does. Steve is the kind of person who will always regret hurting a friend, no matter how justified he felt at the moment or how very fragile their friendship was. “And I’m sorry too, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about now.”

The silence that falls between them is short and functionary, nothing like the breathless ones that build up into their legendary shouting matches and, lastly, a civil war. This is a silence that speaks of agreement, however unaccustomed they are to that.

“If anyone can do this, it is you.” Steve admits then, quietly, not yet daring to think of it as possible.

“Thankfully, I’m not dependant on your suddenly good opinion of me.” When Steve opens his mouth to argue, Tony waves dismissively, before beckoning him to follow.

With quite a bit of pride, he leads Steve into the compound, which has come a far way since their Avenging days. They go up to the glass wall overlooking the former training area, filled now with a multitude of desks and machines and the brightest minds he could find.

For one usually intent on only ever trusting his own plans, Tony could not feel prouder of what they have achieved here in such a short time already. Next to him, Steve is staring, likely barely comprehending what he sees. And how could he? They are not merely doing science here; they are trying to make the impossible possible.

“What I mean is,” Tony says with a wry smile, “thanks for the vote of confidence, but I don’t have to do it alone.”

He could not. No man could finish this task on his own.

“Like you proposed against Ultron, although it feels a lifetime ago,” Tony grins at Steve, the motion feeling still unfamiliar on his face now, in the aftermath, “We’ll do it together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I so hope that Shuri and Tony will meet at one point. What couldn't they achieve together?
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think.


End file.
